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The problems people are experiencing with super7 boards and riva TNT cards are mostly due to either their BIOS being out of date of their AGP chipset drivers being out of date (or both).

The FIC uses the VIA MVP3 chipset, so you should download the latest AGP drivers (v2.9) from the following link:

http://www.aopen.nl/scripts/ftplist.asp?pub/utility/agp/agpvxd29.exe

(ok - I know it's from aopen's site, but the ViaTech site isn't responding at the moment)

and you also check out FIC's homepage to see if there is an update for your BIOS.

Be wary of checking with your mate's Diamond card (on any other cards) because Windows will load new drivers for that card and then usually doesn't bother to remove their entries in the registry when you put your original card back - this can cause random crashes!

I use an AOpen AX59Pro (also using the same AGP chipset as you) and using the latest BIOS and chipset drivers I've had no crashes with my K6-2 350 and Diamond V550 TNT card.

Once you've tested your system with the latest BIOS and chipset drivers (preferably with a fresh installation of Windows - sigh!)
then you can start looking at all the other things that could be causing the crashes (memory, overheating, BIOS settings, etc).

Don't believe everyone who says that TNT cards don't work with socket7 or K6-2 because they do and they look great (Quake2 in openGL mode runs at 1152x864 in full color at 42 frames per second (demo1 map) and looks incredible!)

Also worth mentioning is that all Riva based cards will also work with NVidia's own reference drivers. These always worked better than the manufacturers own drivers when I had my old V330 (riva128) and it's worthwhile trying out NVidia's TNT reference drivers, although word on the grapevine is that, for a change, the manufacturers drivers are better this time.

Ah, sadly the demo1 map for quake II is a joke and will only show you what your peak frame rates will be. If you run the demo2 map, your frame rates will drop. If you go online and find the crusher.dm2 map from Bret 3-fingers Jacobs, you will find what your systems LOWEST frame rates will be in quake II. If you find the massive1.dm2 map, this is a more realistic view of what your average frame rates will be.
An amd k6-2 300 with a riva tnt card and the 3dnow instructions enabled will only put out a score of 21fps in the resolutions you have stated. Goto www.tomshardware.com and look for the comparason article of voodoo2 and tnt. At 640x480, with out the 3dnow instructions with the tnt card, quake II will run at less than 20fps on the crusher.dm2 map. My pII 266 with a voodoo1 card gets these scores on quake II.

The crusher and massive1 maps are the only real way to test to see what your performance in quakeII will be. My forementioned system puts out almost 40fps in the demo1 map, 35fps in the demo2 map, 25fps in the massive1 map, and 20fps in the crusher map. The map scale shows you what your peak frame rates will be at in single player mode (demo1), average fps in single player mode (demo2), average fps in multiplayer mode (massive1), and the lowest fps you system will run the game in multiplayer or single player (crusher) You need to run all of these to get the full picture.

collin---I've been following your posts for a while now and it seems that you are a die-hard intel fan. Not that this is terrible or anything but I am a young, married college student who loves to play qII. currently I have a P200MMX, 32megsRAM, and a generic video card. On demo1 I get about [email protected] On crusher I get about 13fps. As you can see I definately need an improvement. The problem is that because I am so POOR, I need to upgrade. I am definately leaning toward AMD K6-2 due to the low prices. The thing is, even if I could find Intel at a low price; I would also have to upgrade to a new case/pc100 ram right? So please, please tell me that I would not be throwing away $200 on a FIC VA-503+ and a K6-2 350. What level of performance would I get from Intel for $200? I appreciate all your responses---Thanks

sorry, I forgot to say that also I plan on buying a banshee. I found one from creative for less than $100. This is because banshee supports 3dnow instructions. The TNT doesn't, right? I know that TNT is far superior, but if it doesn't utilize 3dnow it's sort of like throwing good money down the drain, not to mention the fact that that TNT is selling for over 150 dollars. so I guess what I am asking is this: for the money, will the amd have the uumph to grunt out 3d intensive games such as QII or unreal?

Sorry it took so long to get back to you millenko... I just found this post.

First off, if you are a die hard quake II fan, the only way to go is an intel. You should be able to find an at form factor pII board and a celeron 300a processor for the amount of money you will be able to spend. It may be a little more than that, but not by much. Unless you are running a voodoo2 card, the amd processor cannot keep up with the celeron 300a at the same clock speed. Unless you got a voodoo2 card (not voodoo1 or banshee) the celeron 300a will be faster than the amd 350 k-6 2. The amd at unreal is even worse than quake II, but all the systems are worse at unreal, that game is just a hog.

You will not need to upgrade case, as i'm assuming you have an at case, there are good at pII mother boards that use the i440lx and the i440bx chipsets. It would be worth it to get the bx over the lx in the long run, if you plan on upping to the 100mhz system bus in the futer.

Now, you wouldnt be throwing your money away on the amd, but for what you want to use it for, an Intel processor would be better for your needs. If you can afford it, try and get a video card that uses multi-texturing, as quake II supports this feature, and will run alot smoother on cards that support it too, such as voodoo2, and riva tnt. If not, you will get satisfactory performance out of most good open gl supporting video cards.

well, it looks like I won't be able to upgrade the mobo and cpu in the near future...xmas bonus was smaller then what I anticipated. I still need a video card but this time for my present system-a p200mmx o/c to 233 with 32megs of Ram. I currently have a worthless generic video card and I don't have AGP. I think for the money and considering my present system I should go for the banshee right? The TNT only starts to shine above 300mhz anyway, right? So again for the best performance for under a $100 the banshee should work great, right?

Well, for your system the banshee is fine, but if quake II is important to you, get a voodoo2 8mb card instead, Quake II supports multitexturing, the Banshee cards do not have 2 texelfx chips, only one and this causes drastic slowdown when compared to a voodoo2. The banshee performance is not much better than a voodoo1 on a lower end system.

You will still get satisfactory frame rates, but the voodoo2 will probably run it satisfactory at 800x600 with your system. A banshee would only likely run good at 640x480. The voodoo1 will only run good at 512x384, 640x480 is slightly choppy. A tnt would probably fair about the same as voodoo2 in quake II, because it supports multitexturing. The tnt performance is fine on lower end systems, if you can find them cheap enough. They are 250+ where I am. (canada). Go with whatever you can find cheap, but try to get a card that supports multi-texturing, as you stated in one of your posts, Quake II is important to you.

well, I understand what you're saying about the superior performance of the v2 and the TNT. But, if I were to buy the v2 and use it with my current setup-remember the generic video card?-I would still have the crappy 2d performance. That's the reason I was looking for a 2d/3d card with reasonable performance for a great price-hence the banshee. I figure that by the time I am ready to step up to the ultimate in performance(sometime this spring)that something bigger and better than the tnt will be out anyway. I appreciate your input-millenko

Look very very hard when you go out to buy a new card. I have heard that you can find the creative riva tnt card for about 100 bucks in the US, so try and find it, and you will be happier with it. The price diff between the creative banshee and tnt where I am is about 20-40 dollars, it will be alot less in the states. You will still be happy with the banshee, but there will be that nagging little voice saying "could I have gotten something better?"